World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Vs The War Within

Since World of Warcraft: Dragonflight hit the stores, the return to Azeroth has been incredibly fun, thanks, in part, to the expansion pack’s new feature: dragon riding. For the first time in WoW history, players can mount a dragon using the momentum-based traversal system and soar and dive around the Dragon Isles. For a two-decade-old game, Dragonflight sure does itself an outstanding job, feeling fresh but maintaining classic principles and quite possibly ushering in a new era. 

Well, we may soon find out how true a “new era” is in the upcoming expansion pack, The War Within. The following pack is also going to be the first entry in the Worldsoul Saga trilogy and will be released sometime in 2024. So, while we hold our breath for its eventual release, let’s take a look at the features to expect, particularly how World of Warcraft: Dragonflight compares to The War Within, shall we?

What is World of Warcraft: Dragonflight?

After Shadowlands, we've had our hands full with World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, the ninth and current expansion pack released on November 28, 2022, for the MMORPG game World of Warcraft (WoW). Contrary to the norm, Dragonflight doesn’t pick up directly where Shadowlands left off. Instead, its story takes place three years after the ending of Shadowlands. 

What is World of Warcraft: The War Within?

On the other hand, World of Warcraft: The War Within is the upcoming WoW expansion pack. It’ll be the tenth expansion pack in the long-running franchise. It’ll also be the opening chapter of the multi-year Worldsoul Saga story arc. While we don’t have an exact release date, we do know the release window falls sometime in 2024, more likely late summer or early autumn. 

Story

Throughout WoW’s history, the core structure of the story has remained the same. You know, defend a primary locale using elemental magic. Explore the world to your fill and uncover long-forgotten secrets. But what do Dragonflight and The War Within do differently?

Well, Dragonflight introduces a new location called the Dragon Isles, an eponymous long-hidden archipelago. We also meet a new playable race class, the Dracthyr Evoker, an ancient winged humanoid dragonkin. 

For a long time, the Dragon Isles have remained uninhabited. Now, the Dracthyr Evoke has suddenly awakened on the Isles, kicking off an epic storyline. Essentially, the dragon flights, an overarching organization called upon to defend the dragons, return to defend the Isles using elemental magic and drawing power from Azeroth’s life energies. 

In addition to a new zone and class, Dragonflight also increases the level cap and adds exciting dungeons and raids. It packs plenty of open-world content and lots of treasures to uncover across five brand-new subzones. Overall, the expansion pack delivers improvements over Shadowlands, with plenty more content updates released across four seasons post-launch.

Meanwhile, The War Within will take place in Khaz Algar, a vast region nestled beneath the surface of Azeroth. We don’t have much story detail as of now. However, we can confirm N’zoth the Corruptor as the root villain. Also, players will be defending Khaz Algar from enemy forces. 

Despite the scarce information regarding The War Within’s campaign story, we do expect to see more content in zones, dungeons, raids, talents, and even a new PvP season. We also anticipate the usual system overhauls, continuously ushering WoW into the modern age. Perhaps we’ll also get a new playable race from N'zoth's origins and an increase in the level cap. But only time will tell.

Gameplay

Dragonflight made big waves when it introduced dragon riding for the first time in WoW history. You can mount a dragon and fly across the Isles, an addition that feels absolutely fantastic to explore. The good news is that The War Within plans to carry forward dynamic flying as well. Every skill and trait tied to riding dragons in Dragonflight will feature in the new pack as well. 

However, The War Within plans to introduce improvements to the feature by removing the need to collect Glyphs and Talents to unlock dragon-riding abilities. So, all the dragon-riding traits and skills will be available for free immediately after you unlock Dynamic Flying. This makes it easier for players who missed out on Dragonflight to explore the complete dragon-riding system. 

Verdict

It seems WoW’s glory days remain stuck in the pre-Shadowlands era. Dragonflight has stuck to its guns, only making a few campaign tweaks here and there. 

Before Shadowlands, WoW would draw staggering hype and excitement. Now, despite Dragonflight breaking sales records, the peak in sales seems more a matter of WoW proving itself over the years and not necessarily Dragonflight’s worth itself. Still, Dragonflight’s efforts to make subtle improvements remain enough to raise anticipation for The War Within. 

On the storyline front, Dragonflight is better than Shadowlands. However, we still expect to see more disruption in the norm. It’s great, though, that it offers more things to do, with constant updates on the world's content. Exploring the Dragon Isles, in itself, offers so much environmental eye candy you constantly find yourself stopping to fan over.

We’ve even had a faster content drip than ever before with Dragonflight, keeping fans busy before The War Within’s arrival. Keep in mind, too, that Dragonflight will have a shorter lifecycle compared to other expansions to make way for The War Within’s arrival, and that’s okay. 

All in all, Dragonflight is a decent expansion with plenty of non-filler side quests and world content. It’s a good enough start to a brighter future and definitely inspires optimism for The War Within to get WoW back on track. Yet, we still can’t be sure that The War Within will, in fact, restore WoW to its former glory. 

A quick reminder that pre-ordering The War Within comes with Dragonflight included. So, you don’t need to buy Dragonflight separately (if you haven’t already).

So, what’s your take on our comparison of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight vs The War Within? Let us know your thoughts here on our socials or down in the comments.